Angkor WatThe moat, Bayon, Ta Prohmfrom $6
SunriseGates open at fivefrom $10
Stilt villagesKampong Phluk by boatfrom $15
Outer templesBeng Mealea, Koh Kerfrom $38
Rice countryPaddies and palm sugarfrom $15 Five in the morning at Angkor. Then the rest of Cambodia.
Which sunrise tour actually gets you past the moat before the coaches. What a boat through Kampong Phluk costs. Whether Beng Mealea is worth the drive when Ta Prohm is twenty minutes away. Reviews of every tour you can book in Cambodia.
Angkor, the lake, a mountain shrine, a Khmer kitchen.
The four bookings a first week in Cambodia is built around. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
- 01Day one, before dawnAngkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem ReapSunrise over the moat, then Bayon and Ta Prohm before the heat lands. The one everybody books first, and it holds up.
- 02The lake dayKampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by BoatA wooden boat out to Kampong Phluk, where the houses stand on twenty-foot stilts and the water decides how far you get.
03The mountainKulen Mountain: Small-Group Tour and Picnic lunchPhnom Kulen, an hour and a half north: the reclining Buddha carved into the summit rock, a waterfall and lunch under the trees.
04The kitchenKhmer Cooking Class at a Local’s Home in Krong Siem ReapMarket first, then prahok, amok and a charcoal stove in somebody's house in Krong Siem Reap.
Angkor is three days of walking. Decide which three.
A pass buys you the park, not a plan. Four ways to take it: the classic circuit, the five-o'clock start, the jungle temples an hour out, and the mountain shrine north of the moat. What each one costs to join.
Siem Reap for the temples, Phnom Penh for everything after.
The temple town, the riverside capital, a bat cave and a bamboo track in the west, the pepper coast in the south, and the lake that feeds all of it. Six bases, and the best day out from each.
The Tonlé Sap runs backwards for half the year.
When the Mekong rises it shoves the lake into reverse and floods the forest behind it. That is why Kampong Phluk stands on stilts, why the boats go where they go, and why a morning trip and a sunset trip are two different landscapes.
Cambodia’s most-booked days out.
Every Cambodian tour we have reviewed →These fill up first, all year round. What each costs, how long it runs, and why it keeps selling out.
1
Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem Reap
Join a small group of up to 13 people for an early Angkor Wat visit, then explore Bayon, Ta Prohm, and Banteay Kdei with an English-speaking guide. Guides such as Mr. T, Sen, David, and Chanthy are praised for clear stories and humor. Transport, water, and cold towels are included. The $37 temple pass is extra.
From · $18
Read our review →
2
Angkor Wat: Small-Group Sunrise or Sunset Tour
from $15
3
Kampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by Boat
from $20
4
Sunset tour of Kampong Phluk stilts home village on the Tonle Sap
from $21
5
Angkor Wat 2-Day Tour with Sunrise and Sunset
from $34
6
Kampong Phluk Floating Village Tour with Boat
from $19
7
Full-Day Angkor Wat Guided Tour with Sunset
from $15
8
Angkor Wat Sunrise tour with Small – Group and Guide tours
from $14
Phnom Penh asks more of you than Siem Reap does.
Everything in Phnom Penh →The capital sits where the Mekong meets the Tonlé Sap, and a day here runs from a gilded palace roof to a school the Khmer Rouge turned into a prison. Take it in that order, and leave the evening for the river.
Tuol Sleng and Choeung Ek
S-21 was a secondary school before 1975. The site keeps the classrooms, the photographs and the records as they were found. Choeung Ek is fifteen kilometres out. Most tours pair them in one morning; go early, and give yourself the afternoon.
Street food by tuk-tuk
Twenty tastings across the riverside and the lanes behind Central Market: num banh chok for breakfast at nine at night, grilled river fish, palm wine. The tuk-tuk does the distance so you do not.
Koh Dach, the silk island
A short ferry over the Mekong lands you among looms working under stilt houses. Bicycles, e-bikes or a tuk-tuk take the dirt road round the island; the weaving is the whole point of the trip.
A day out in Cambodia is cheaper than you think.
Every tour on this site, grouped by what it costs. Most of the country’s best days come in under the price of a hotel breakfast at home.
Temple circuits by tuk-tuk, the boat to Kampong Phluk, cooking classes, the Battambang bamboo track.
Full days with a car and a guide: Kulen and Beng Mealea, Koh Ker, the run down to Kampot and Kep.
Private guides for a whole family, multi-day temple passes and the long road transfers with stops built in.
Three things that only happen in Cambodia.
Temples and street food exist all over Southeast Asia. A train made of a bamboo pallet, a cave that empties two million bats at dusk, and a dance form rebuilt from the handful of dancers who survived do not.
The Bamboo Train
A norry is a bamboo pallet on two axles with a small engine bolted to the back, running on a single warped track laid by the French. When two meet, the lighter one is lifted off the rails by hand and put back once the other has passed. The original line at O Dambong gave way to a rebuilt version at Banan; both still run, both still take about twenty minutes each way, and neither has ever pretended to be a railway.
- 1Tuk-Tuk, Bamboo Train, Killing/Bat Caves, Sunset★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,436 reviews
- 2Afternoon tour by tuk tuk to bamboo train,bat cave,killing cave,countryside.★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 344 reviews
- 3Bamboo Train, Bat Cave, Killing Cave by Tuk Tuk★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 182 reviews
The Bat Cave at Phnom Sampeau
Around six in the evening a black ribbon starts pouring out of a cleft in the limestone above Battambang and keeps pouring for the better part of an hour. Millions of wrinkle-lipped bats head out over the rice fields to feed. People park below with a cold drink and watch it the way other places watch a sunset, because the sunset is happening behind it anyway.
- 1Tuk-Tuk, Bamboo Train, Killing/Bat Caves, Sunset★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,436 reviews
- 2Afternoon tour by tuk tuk to bamboo train,bat cave,killing cave,countryside.★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 344 reviews
- 3Bamboo Train, Bat Cave, Killing Cave by Tuk Tuk★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 182 reviews
Apsara Dance
The dance is carved into the walls at Angkor, thousands of times over, and it was very nearly lost: most of the royal ballet died between 1975 and 1979. What is performed in Siem Reap tonight was reassembled by the teachers who lived, from memory and from the reliefs. The hand positions are the vocabulary; each one is a word.
- 1Apsara Show Including Dinner & Hotel Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 615 reviews
- 2Apsara Dance Show and Dinner with Hotel Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 425 reviews
- 3Apsara Dance Show & Dinner with Tuk-Tuk Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 254 reviews
Kampot smells of pepper and low tide.
Two hours from the capital the land flattens into salt pans and pepper trellises, with Bokor mountain fogged in above and crab shacks at Kep along the coast. Nobody hurries here, which is most of the reason to come.
Every day out from Kampot →
Four Cambodian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on gate times, water levels, road transfers and a dusk that does not move for anybody.
- 01Angkor Wat Sunrise or Sunset Tour with Guide from Siem ReapThe gates open at five and the small-group seats go long before the walk-up desk does. A late booking means the coach, not the minibus.
- 02Tuk-Tuk, Bamboo Train, Killing/Bat Caves, SunsetThe norry runs while there is light and stops when there is not, and the drivers work to the number of people already booked in.
- 03Tuk-Tuk, Bamboo Train, Killing/Bat Caves, SunsetThe bats leave at dusk, not at a time you choose. Miss the departure from Battambang and there is no second showing.
- 04Kampong Phluk Floating Village Tour by BoatWater level decides the route, and in the dry months the boats work a much shorter stretch. Operators cap the day accordingly.
When Cambodia hits forty degrees, book indoors and early.
Two things shape the calendar. March to May the heat makes an open temple unbearable after ten in the morning. June to October the afternoon storm arrives on schedule and the dirt roads soften. Same answer to both: start at first light, then find a kitchen, a workshop or a market hall with a roof on it.
By place — temple town, capital, coast
By kind of day — temple, boat, kitchen or road
Siem Reap, the lake, Battambang, the capital, the coast.
The newest Cambodian tour reviews.
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